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Islamic Reconquest in Spain

Beirut (AsiaNews) Ã‚â€“ The desire to “regain” the Mosque of Cordoba, now a Cathedral since 1236, is a clear signÃ‚Â of theÃ‚Â Muslim tendency to “re-conquer” Europe. However, “the support given by certain Spanish government leaders in the city (of Cordoba)Ã‚Â makes itÃ‚Â all theÃ‚Â more manifest just how much Europe has ‘lost its identity’, widespread now across the continent”, Fr. Samir Khalil, a professor in Beirut told AsiaNews.

The same Fr Samir in a 2004 article.

Jesuit Father Samir Khalil, 68, is one of the world’s greatest experts on the Islamic and Arab world. Of Egyptian origin, he worked for years in Egypt and Lebanon. To this very day he divides his time between teachings at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut and the Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies in Rome.

Well that would be likely because Cordoba was the jewel of Europe under Islamic rule. It would be foolish to suggest that Cordoba does not have legitimate heritage in Muslim traditions, and in particular the influence of architecture and technology which placed Cordoba and other Spanish cities under Moorish rule highly above those of the Western European kingdoms.

In Arabic “Qurtuba” contains many impressive architectural reminders of when Cordoba was the thriving capital of the Caliphate of Cordoba that governed almost all of the Iberian peninsula. It has been estimated that Cordoba, with up to 500,000 inhabitants in the tenth century, was the largest city in Western Europe and, perhaps, in the world. In the 10th Century, before the Western European crusades, Cordoba was a great cultural, political and economic centre.

Spain was Christian for nearly 700 years before it was muslim, or don’t any of you read a history book? It was a destination for Christian missionaries in the first century AD– or first century CE if you prefer. Muslims when they attacked and overran sites in Christendom, and in India, usually planted a mosque on the side of a Christian church or Hindu temple, just as they built the Al Aqsa mosque compound on the site of the second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Then they declare that site out of bounds to the original owners. That’s their M.O. Never fails. If you don’t believe me, look at the basilica of Santa Sophia in Istanbul, now a mosque. It was built and used by Christians for centuries before the Turks overran it. Let us not forget: the muslims are violent, aggressive newcomers in the religious universe. “Convert or die” was their method of ensuring that people whom they conquered enjoyed NO religious freedom. Survivors remained second-class citizens, which is a fact of life that still exists today in the world of Islam. If you think otherwise, then you really need to travel more.

Cassandra, there is strong evidence to suggest that the conversion to Islam was based on the powers of suggestion, rather than the sword. It is an untruth to characterize the expansion of the Islamic empire as violent or aggressive, or at least no more so than any other type of colonial power. Muslims who did invade often spared the conquered peoples and allowed them to continue practicing Christianity.

Certainly Spain was Christian before Islam came along. After all, Islam is a newer religion. But to deny the cultural heritage of Islam in European history would be as silly as denying the Christian heritage in the Holy Land.

The period of the Caliphate is seen by Muslim writers as the golden age of al-Andalus. Crops produced using irrigation, along with food imported from the Middle East, provided the area around CÃƒÂ³rdoba and some other AndalusÃ„Â« cities with an agricultural economic sector by far the most advanced in Europe.

Among European cities, CÃƒÂ³rdoba under the Caliphate, with a population of perhaps 500,000, eventually overtook Constantinople as the largest and most prosperous city in Europe. Within the Islamic world, CÃƒÂ³rdoba was one of the leading cultural centres. The work of its most important philosophers and scientists (notably Abulcasis and Averroes) had a major influence on the intellectual life of medieval Europe.

[…]The society of Al-Andalus was made up of three main groups: Christians, Muslims and Jews. The Muslims, though united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. Mozarabs were Christians that had long lived under Muslim domination and so had adopted many Arabic customs, art and words, while still maintaining their Christian rituals and their own Latin-derived languages. Each of these communities inhabited a separate part of the cities.

The Arabs settled in the south and in the Ebro Valley in the north-east, while the Berbers, who made up the bulk of the invaders, lived in the mountainous regions of what is now the north of Portugal and in the Meseta Central. The Jews worked mainly as tax collectors, in trade or as doctors or ambassadors. At the end of the fifteenth century there were about 50,000 Jews in Granada and roughly 100,000 in the whole of Islamic Iberia.

Of particular note, read the heading entitled:

Treatment of non-Muslims

The treatment of non-Muslims in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing parallels to the coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. It has been stated that religious minorities were treated significantly better in Muslim-controlled Iberia than in Christian western Europe, living in a unique “golden age” of tolerance, respect and harmony.

It even goes on to say that cultural minorities thrived better under Islamic rule than under the often turbulent rulers of Christianity.